Thomas Kyd - The Spanish Tragedy, pt. 2

Part 2 of our look at the Spanish Tragedy. There's blood and spoilers ahead.

Act III, Scene 1
The Viceroy of Portugal is getting ready to execute Alexandro, binding him to a stake and everything when the Ambassador shows up with good news. Balthazar’s alive in the Spanish court and getting ready to get married. Alexandro is untied, apologized to and Viluppo is taken away as a traitor, having been served a hearty plate of justice. Sadly, his fate is off-stage.

Act III, Scene 2
Hieronimo mourns his son in a long (but very nice) speech when a letter falleth from the sky. Written in blood by Bel-imperia, who’s been locked up Rapunzel-style by Lorenzo, the letter tells Hieronimo all about the murder.

Lorenzo, suspecting that someone suspects arrives and pays Pedringano to kill Serebine (Balthazar’s servant. Oh, so that's who he is) because he’s probably ratting them out.

Act III, Scene 3
Pedringano loiters ominously at night, then shoots Serebine when he shows up. The night watch show up in record time to actually see the smoking gun in the killer’s hand and arrest Pedringano.

Act III, Scene 4
Lorenzo tells Balthazar that he thinks somebody sold them out to Hieronimo. A page arrives telling them that Serebine is dead and Pedringano arrested. Lorenzo assures Balthazar that Pedringano will die as well and that there’s nothing to worry about. A page then tells Lorenzo that Pedringano’s in jail and asking Lorenzo to bail him out. Lorenzo gives the page a box to take with him.

Act III, Scene 5
The page looks in the box (because he was told not too) and finds...NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! The page comments that Pedringano is royally screwed if he thinks the pardon is in the box.

Act III, Scene 6
Hieronimo brings Pedringano before a gallows. Pedringano thinks the pardon is in the box the page brings. Black comedy ensues and Pedringano is hung.

Act III, Scene 7
Hieronimo broods over the death of Horatio when the hangman brings him a letter Pedringano had on him. The letter reaffirms Bel-imperia’s letter, and Hieronimo is PISSED.

Act III, Scene 8
Isabella, grieving for her son, “runs lunatic” as the stage directions say.

Act III, Scene 9
Bel-imperia is at a window. She is sad. That’s it.

Act III, Scene 10
Balthazar tries to court Bel-imperia again with predictable results. Bel-imperia blows him off, Lorenzo is mad at her, and Balthazar is sad that she doesn’t like him.

Act III, Scene 11
Hieronimo meets some Portuguese guys and pretends to act crazy in front of them. There is much laughing. (Shakespeare Shot)

Act III, Scene 12
Hieronimo broods some more (Shakespeare Shot) before continuing the crazy act in front of the King, Ambassador, Castile and Lorenzo. Lorenzo denies Hieronimo an audience with the King.

Act III, Scene 13
Hieronimo plots revenge then hears some legal cases.

Act III, Scene 14
The Viceroy of Portugal arrives at the King’s court. Everybody hugs. Balthazar keeps trying to woo Bel-imperia (who is very much against hugging him). Castile talks to Hieronimo, who pretends to reconcile with Lorenzo and Balthazar.

Act III, Scene 15 (Yes, FIFTEEN)
Don Andrea wakes up a sleeping Revenge (can you blame him? I mean, 15 scenes!!) and whines about how revenge isn’t about making buddies with the people that killed your son. Revenge tells him to wait and nods off again.

Act IV, Scene 1
Bel-imperia and Hieronimo scheme together then pretend to be nice to Lorenzo and Balthazar. Hieronimo asks them to star in a play for the King and Viceroy’s amusement. They agree and rehearse a little.

Act IV, Scene 2
Isabella, still crazy with grief, stabs herself to death.

Act IV, Scene 3
Hieronymus “knocks up the curtain” and prepares the stage for the rulers. Castile talks with him about the upcoming play.

Act IV, Scene 4
The court sits down for a nice evening of theater, and comment on how realistic it looked when Hieronimo stabbed Lorenzo and Bel-imperia stabbed Balthazar and herself. They quite literally “act out revenge.” Pretty good for amateur thespians. Hieronimo draws back a curtain revealing the dead (and likely smelly) Horatio, explains to the King everything leading up to the revenge, bites his own tongue out then stabs Castile and himself. (That’s…a whole bottle’s worth of Shakespeare borrowing right there).

Act IV, Scene 5
Don Andrea is pretty satisfied with the outcome. He and Revenge leave the stage to go and meet the newcomers to the underworld. The End.
　
Impressions
Pretty wild, when you look at it as a whole. Being an early Elizabethan play, there’s a lot of dead time, a lot of needlessly boring scenes and a couple other things that seem off (I mean Serebine shows up at the murder of Horatio for the sole purpose of being killed off later) and other things that get “ironed out” of later plays, but when Kyd gets down to business, he bloody well delivers. Stuff like the murder in the garden just punch the audience in the face and scream “pay attention!” Hell, the whole climax of the play with the “play-within-a-play” and the “everybody dies” ending was so damn effective that Shakespeare pretty much lifted it beat by beat and tossed it into his most highly regarded tragedy (with a few nods to Othello for good measure) This play was the moment in Elizabethan theater where audiences looked at each other and said “shit just got real.” Exactly like in Bad Boys 2.